Summary of
FNCA2009 Workshop on
Safety Management System for Nuclear Facilities

The workshop was opened by Dr Ron Hutchings (ANSTO) who welcomed the participants and outlined the context for the workshop. This Safety Management Systems (SMS) Project was agreed at the 10th Co-ordinator's meeting as the successor to previous Nuclear Safety Culture (NSC) Project.

Mr Basil Ellis (ANSTO), who is the Project Leader for the SMS Project lead country Australia, then outlined the activities of the workshop.

Workshop Sessions

Mr Simon Bastin, who was Project Leader for the previous NSC Project, gave further context for the new SMS Project by presenting an outline of the earlier project.

Each participating country in the SMS Project working group then gave a presentation. The presentation from each speaker briefly described their organisation, the nuclear facilities they had and then gave an outline of the Safety Management System (SMS) in place. The presentations were interesting and well received. They are given in Appendix 3.

The workshop participants then discussed the available reference and guidance material. There are many good IAEA documents giving information on SMS. The participants felt that, although the higher level IAEA documents including the Code of Conduct and the Safety Fundamentals were valuable, the more detailed Safety Guide GS-G-3.1 on Application of the Management System for Facilities and Activities would give more practical guidance to the Project. Other documents are the international standards ISO 9001, ISO 14001 and OHSAS 18001. The participants agreed that the SMS tools and guidance developed by the SMS Project should be checked against these to ensure consistency with modern management system thinking. The participants acknowledged that the information and tools developed in the previous NSC Project would be valuable.

ANSTO safety experts gave presentations to the workshop to provide an example of Safety Management Systems in place at a nuclear facility. Mr Hefin Griffiths and Ms Maria Petrou described the ANSTO Occupational Health, Safety and Environment (OHSE) management system which provides the high-level framework and requirements for ANSTO activities. The OPAL research reactor and the other ANSTO facilities and activities must comply with these. Mr Griffiths kindly offered to make the ANSTO OHSE document set available to the workshop participants and this will be arranged.

Mr James Keene then described the management system for the ANSTO Reactor Operations division which links with the high-level OHSE system and implements the specific safety management requirements, including regulatory requirements, for the OPAL research reactor. Mr Ellis later noted that the integration of the various management systems (quality, safety, environment, business, finance etc) in ANSTO had further to progress.

Dr Greg Storr, G/M of Reactor Operations division, referred to previous ANSTO activities involving collaboration with Asian countries including the NSC project. Dr Storr, who is the Australian leader for the Asian Nuclear Safety Network Safety Management for Research Reactors Topical Group (ANSN SMRRTG), briefly described the ANSN aims and activities. He encouraged the collaboration by the FNCA SMS Project to share knowledge and avoid duplication of activities and there was a discussion on ways to achieve this. The interaction with the ANSN SMRRTG was discussed again later and the participants agreed to some collaboration measures, including that the workshop reports should be made available to the ANSN and that the country leader for the ANSN SMRRTG should be invited to FNCA SMS workshops held in that country.

Mr Ian Graham from the Australian Radiation Protection and Nuclear Safety Agency (ARPANSA) then briefly described the regulator's role. There was discussion on the extent to which regulatory requirements should be included in the guidance material developed by the SMS Project. Mr Graham also presented a case study on the implementation of a safety management system for another industry.

An important activity at the workshop was to plan and develop the SMS assessment processes and a self-assessment / peer review tool. This will be the tool that will be used by the organisations in each country perform a self-assessment of their SMS. It will also be the tool used by teams made up of members from the Project organisations to perform peer reviews of the SMS of organisations in countries which are agreeable.

Mr Bastin gave a presentation on the development of the processes and tools in the previous NSC Project. That Project team had used attitudinal surveys, key indicators and a self-assessment / peer review tool as tools to promote and assess safety culture. Mr Bastin explained that the NSC self-assessment / peer review tool was originally developed primarily from IAEA guidance material and was considerably enhanced until its final version in 2008. The NSC tool included questions on both safety culture and on more practical matters such as radiation protection, because the systems to manage these reflect the handling of safety in the organisation.

Mr Satoshi Kurata (Chuba EPCo) gave a presentation on behalf of Mr Jun Hamada(JANTI) on JANTI's peer review process which aims to enhance safety and reliability by identifying strengths and areas for improvement. He explained that the peer review process was powerful because it identified areas for improvement by assessment against best practice whereas the quality audit process often made an assessment against the minimum requirements.

The workshop participants reviewed the NSC self-assessment / peer review tool and agreed this was a suitable form for the SMS Project. Several of the question themes were useful for the assessment of SMS. The participants agreed that the peer review reports from the previous NSC project would be helpful to the SMS Project and this will be arranged where possible. The participants considered, by discussion and by review of information such as IAEA GS-G-3.1, other issues to include in the tool. Immediately following the workshop, all of this information will be incorporated into a draft SMS self-assessment / peer review tool and circulated to the working group for refinement and agreement.

Because this was the inaugural workshop, the participants reviewed the project scope and objectives. The project proposed by Dr Ron Cameron at the 10th Coordinators' Meeting was for Research Reactor Facilities. The workshop participants felt that this scope should be generalised slightly to Nuclear Facilities, with the understanding that the main emphasis was on Research Reactors. The participants also felt that minor changes to the Project objectives were appropriate. These minor changes reflect the range of backgrounds of the working group and the facilities in their organisations. The proposed new version incorporating these changes is given in Appendix 4.

There was a workshop session devoted to planning future SMS Project activities. A key question was whether to separate the peer review from the workshop or to have a combined peer review and workshop. The previous NSC Project had tried both approaches and participants who were involved with the previous project explained the relative merits of the two approaches. The option of a peer review by a small team followed later by a separate workshop allows review of progress in addressing the peer review recommendations. However, the participants at the workshop who were not involved in the peer review do not get the full learning intended. The second option of having a combined peer review followed immediately by the workshop allows all participants to learn from the review process and was, on balance, favoured for this SMS Project. Mr Ellis noted that, consistent with the management system principle of continuing improvement, this could be changed in the future.

The matter of host country for the first peer review was discussed. As this was the inaugural workshop, it was difficult for participants to give a commitment. Several expressed willingness to be host later in the project. The intention is to hold a combined peer review / workshop at an organisation in a host country when this can be arranged. The host country will be found by discussion amongst the SMS Project working group.

Workshop Sessions

The workshop participants were given guided tours of the key areas of the ANSTO Lucas Heights site. One tour visited the OPAL research reactor visitor centre and pool top area. The OPAL reactor, which has replaced the HIFAR reactor, is a multipurpose 20 MW (thermal) pool reactor. Principal uses are the manufacture of radioisotopes for radiopharmaceuticals and the provision of thermal and cold neutron beams for research in the adjacent facility. In another tour the participants viewed the modern neutron research instruments, the ANSTO radioactive waste management facility and other research buildings on the site.

Workshop Conclusions

The SMS Project workshop participants concluded that the sessions and activities had been useful and informative and that the workshop should be judged a success.

The participants concluded that the type of self-assessment / peer review tool as most recently used by the previous NSC Project was an appropriate starting point for this SMS Project and that this would logically be refined by the working group with experience in the future.

The participants concluded that, subject to agreement by a suitable host country organisation and subject to funding, a combined peer review and workshop will be held when this can be arranged.

The participants concluded that the SMS Project should facilitate collaboration with the ANSN by invitation of the country ANSN SMRRTG representative to workshops in that country and other measures.

The participants concluded that minor amendments to the SMS Project scope and objectives as reflected in Appendix 4 were appropriate and should be recommended to the FNCA Coordinators.